. The book of the long trail. auling on it, and then the mostfortunate of all the chances happened—the waist linebroke and came away, and the gallant little Gurkha,feeling suddenly lightened by this, made a supremeeffort and pulled himself the rest of the way to thefurther bank. Other ropes were then thrown overand secured, and a rattan bridge of 100 feet span wascompleted by which the whole party crossed. Thewhole idea and most of the work was due to theGurkhas. On the high ground beyond the Iwaka the explorersfound really beautiful scenery, and after the Gurkhashad for four days cut a path t
. The book of the long trail. auling on it, and then the mostfortunate of all the chances happened—the waist linebroke and came away, and the gallant little Gurkha,feeling suddenly lightened by this, made a supremeeffort and pulled himself the rest of the way to thefurther bank. Other ropes were then thrown overand secured, and a rattan bridge of 100 feet span wascompleted by which the whole party crossed. Thewhole idea and most of the work was due to theGurkhas. On the high ground beyond the Iwaka the explorersfound really beautiful scenery, and after the Gurkhashad for four days cut a path through trees andscented scrub they gained a ridge 5,800 feet high, fromwhich a superb view could be seen. There before themrose Mount Godman and Wataikwa Mountain ; betweenand beyond these, the tremendous cliffs of MountLeonard Darwin, 13,882 feet in height, of which 10,000feet is an almost vertical precipice ; to the west theCharles Louis range; to the east the Cocks Comb,behind which banks of cloud hid the summit of Mount. They had crossed on this shaky bridge. 312 THE BOOK OF THE LONG TRAIL Carstensz. Below them lay innumerable rivers,*glitter-ing in the sun, among them the four which they hadcrossed with so much labour, the Tuaba, Kamura,Wataikwa and Iwaka. During the following days,says WoUaston, while we were stumbling back toParimau, along the now familiar track, we wonderedwhether we should be the last as well as the firstEuropeans to penetrate into that forsaken region. Ithas been mapped now, and our wanderings have shownthat it is not the way by which any sane person would^o who wished to explore the Snow Mountains. It isa region absolutely without inhabitants, and thePapuans who live on the upper waters of the Mimikaand Kamura rivers shun it even as a are no precious metals to be won, and not untilall the other forests in the world are cut down will itstimber be of value. So it may safely be supposed thatit will long be left untouched; the Bird
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectexplorers, bookyear19
